Talks nearly derailed Friday night before after a memo to players summarizing Thursday's meetings was leaked to the media. That led to suggestions that the players' association didn't fully convey the owners' most recent proposal to its membership accurately or completely. The Star Tribune's NHL sources, said they were perplexed by Fehr telling his 725 constituents on Thursday night that there’s a “significant gap” between the two sides.

Fehr, after a heated end to negotiations on Friday night and a conference call with players, sternly shot down the report as false, if for no other reason that there were players present at the negotiations when the offer was put forward.

"Their proposal is made in front of players in the room who hear it," Fehr said. "It's made in front of staff who hear it, it's made in front of former players who hear it. They're on the phone talking to everybody on an ongoing basis afterward."

Several players spoke out against the accusation—and, like, Ovechkin, some were angry or incredulous about it. They've said from Day 1, with ample proof to back them, that one Fehr's main goals is open communication.

Fehr also said the characterization of the gap came in part from the league.

"(Commissioner Gary Bettman) made a comment (Thursday) that there is still a lot of work to do. I think, given today's session, there is still a lot of work to do," Fehr said. "We looked at some of the numbers on the various proposals and we thought we were much closer together on the structure of a deal than the suggestions were. They came back to us and said, 'No, we are very very far apart on the structure of the deal.'"

The main issue remains how the NHL honors existing contracts and when the league's revenue reaches a 50/50 split. Players currently receive 57 percent and have proposed to reduce that gradually to 50/50. Owners want an immediate drop, and have offered players $211 million plus interest on existing deals, according to multiple reports, which would reportedly cover the first two years. The league projects growth to take care of the rest—and that's not sufficient, according to the union.

"If the notion is they're honoring all the contracts and everyone is getting paid what they're supposed to be paid according to the letter of the contracts that's not true and never has been," Fehr said, according to Sportnet's Michael Grange. "I don't know where that notion came from."

The NHLPA also claims the league has told them that the contractual changes they want to make are non-negotiable, but multiple reports classify only the five-percent variance on salaries, designed to avoid long-term, cap-circumventing deals, as such.